


the paradox of theseus becoming his ship

by andthentheybow



Series: icarus is bullshit, that's why it's called mythology [6]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, TommyInnit Angst (Video Blogging RPF), TommyInnit-centric (Video Blogging RPF), no beta we die like l'manberg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28822398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthentheybow/pseuds/andthentheybow
Summary: there are pieces of him lying scattered throughout the world.if you take every part of him and replace it over time, is he even the same kid he used to be?
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), No Romantic Relationship(s), Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Series: icarus is bullshit, that's why it's called mythology [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2057166
Comments: 36
Kudos: 216





	the paradox of theseus becoming his ship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [diapason](https://archiveofourown.org/users/diapason/gifts).



> don't be creepy about content creators, these are my interpretations of their personas, if they're uncomfortable this will be deleted, etc etc
> 
> thank you to the incredible [ diapason ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/diapason/pseuds/diapason) for giving me this idea, i speedran this fic just for them

there is a boy sitting on a hill. the sun is rising. the leaves are rustling with a breeze that does not exist. he is surrounded by ghosts.

“hey, big man,” he says.

his name is tommy innit and he is talking to a grave. he is hunched over around his knees, poised on the balls of his feet, ready to run. he is always ready to run.

he is talking to a grave, not of his brother, but of his cow. henry has been dead for a long time. tommy’s hope has been dead for longer.

“it’s been a while.”

a while since he visited the grave. a while since he had a moment of peace. everything is falling apart and coming together. nothing will ever be the same.

there are pieces of him lying scattered throughout the world. everyone he knows has taken a part of him and replaced it.

it’s the paradox of theseus’s ship. if you replace every board and nail individually over time, is it still the same ship that it was to begin with? if every part of tommy is taken away and replaced, is he still the same kid he used to be?

theseus has become his ship. theseus is not home and has not been home for a long time. there are no white sails raised, no father to jump off a cliff, no minotaur and no labyrinth and no nothing. there is only tommy and the grave he is talking to and the way things used to be.

he doesn’t know about the ship, but he’s not the same kid he once was.

there is a piece of him in every place he has ever called home. l’manberg. pogtopia. logstedshire. there is a piece of him in each location, a disc, a ravine, a pillar, far underground and far into the sky, and the discs are eternal, they will never die-

-if he were dream, he would simply shatter the discs once he got his hands on them. get it over with, rather than give him false hope. he would take the discs and snap them in front of himself and that would be that.

dream will continue giving him false hope. tommy would make a fucking terrible villain.

there is a piece of him in each place he has called home, pieces that those places stole from him. there are pieces of him that they have given in return, a bandana around his neck, a scar from the pit, a crack in his heart that he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to repair.

three pieces of him replaced.

there is a piece of him in every person he has ever called home. he gives them pieces of himself, and they give him pieces of themselves in return. tubbo, wilbur, phil, techno, dream, niki, quackity, fundy, ranboo, eret, sapnap, george- they all have pieces of him, and he has pieces of all of them. 

they are the golden lacquer filling his porcelain cracks. they are the mortar between the bricks of his life. they are the heavy stones in his pockets, the wings lifting him higher, the compass he wears around his neck.

george laughs when he finds his house griefed. he is not upset, he is laughing. he is laughing because he knows what will happen now, he knows that dream will leap to his defense, he knows that tommy will do nothing other than suffer for this. he doesn’t care about the house that he built while a country was destroyed. he cares about retribution, the chaos that will come. tommy takes a piece of the wooden wall of george’s home, and george takes a bit of tommy’s peace in return.

sapnap shoves his cow off a ledge and holds a sword to his throat and refuses to stand down. they look each other in the eyes and they laugh and they run and they fight and they hate so, so strongly. tommy turns sapnap’s best friend against him, because it’s about tommy, isn’t it, that’s why everything is happening? this started because tommy griefed george’s house and now tommy has taken sapnap’s best friend from him, and sapnap has taken a piece of tommy’s energy in exchange.

eret takes his first life and almost leaves nothing. instead of nothing they leave trust issues, that run deep in tommy’s blood, with every pounding of his heart. every adult in his life will fail him and eret is just the beginning. eret replaces tommy’s innocence with something harder, something that runs deeper than blood. tommy is not a kid, he can’t afford to be, not when every action could lead to his death. eret teaches him that. eret takes so much and gives just as much in return, and takes pieces upon pieces of who tommy was and gives back something that is not him, but in time, it will be.

ranboo is everything that tommy is not. he’s calmer, more compassionate, a bit confused at times. he’s the only one that sticks up for tommy when he’s about to be exiled, he’s the only one who supports him. tommy willingly gives a little piece and ranboo trades it for one of his own, because they’re kids, right? kids have to stick together. no matter what.

fundy is everything that tommy could have been, if things had been a little different. fundy was born into war. war was born from tommy. they exchange pieces like jokes, wilbur watching in the background. the one thing they both want is to make their family proud, and they’re both willing to sacrifice pieces of themselves to do it.

quackity is loud and brash and exactly like tommy, and they yell together and laugh and have fun. the pieces of tommy that are left over from eret’s betrayal, the pieces of his innocence that were left untouched. they laugh and tommy gives the last bits of innocence and allows himself to forget everything that has happened.

he can’t forget. he can never forget. every piece of him has been replaced by the people around him, by the places around him, by the events that define his life.

niki gives and does not ask for anything in return. she gives love, affection, care, everything that he needs. she gives so much and receives so little, and he gives her his heart in return. she is his sister, and he trusts no one else with the lowest parts of himself, the parts where he breaks down in front of a grave, a cow’s, a general’s, he trusts no one else with that. he finds out that she burned down the tree and he forgives her, because if anyone deserves to it’s her.

dream takes and does not give anything in return. dream takes  _ everything _ from him, everything, the discs, his best friend, his home. tommy is  _ fed up _ but there is nothing he can do, not when dream has the ability to annihilate whole countries at the snap of a finger. dream is a god who can destroy cities built on bone on a whim, and when he takes pieces from tommy, he does not ask for permission. he does not ask for forgiveness. his cracked mask haunts tommy’s nightmares and all dream ever leaves in return is pain.

techno is like his brother, even if they aren’t related, because techno is the one to take him in and protect him. techno, who gives him food and shelter and hides him from dream when the god comes looking. techno, who doesn’t ask for anything in return, but still expects it. techno gives him brotherhood and tommy gives it right back. techno never betrays him, not once, but he’s still an adult and that just means that tommy can’t trust him, because when it comes down to it, there is still something techno will choose over him every time.

phil is his father, and they are related, them and the joke about the fridge so that phil doesn’t have to mention the woman he loved. phil is his father and when he needed his father most, he wasn’t there. when tommy was scared and alone and there was a war raging on his doorstep and in his mind, his father didn’t come. and phil was there when wilbur needed to die, he was there when techno needed an ally, and when tommy needed a father he wasn’t there.

he’s here now. he’s here now, and he’s supposed to be keeping tommy safe. but he chooses his old war buddy over his son, and tommy accepts it. he accepts that his fate is in his own hands, that phil can’t help him anymore. phil’s here now and he stays out of it when techno and dream blow up l’manberg for the final time, her last life, and that’s the most he can give his youngest son. tommy knows phil would do anything for him, but there are a lot of other people phil would do anything for, too.

theseus forgot to raise the white sails. his father thought he was dead, and threw himself off a cliff. tommy forgets to raise his white sails and leaves a pillar behind, and phil does not mourn. phil does not mourn, because he is a creature made of wings, and he gave that to his son. tommy jumps, and he flies, and phil knows it. tommy doesn’t need to give phil anything. phil already has it all.

wilbur. his brother, who he has followed through everything. war. exile. l’manberg. pogtopia. wilbur is dead and tommy did not kill him, but he may as well have, because never once did he try to stop everything that was going on, never once did he tell wilbur to stop, to slow down, to take a breath. when wilbur went mad he did nothing, when he was begging phil to kill them he stood there in shock.

he gave wilbur everything he had and more, and in return, wilbur gave him a country. wilbur gave him  _ hope _ . hope, which was the most important thing of all, in a rebellion or a revolution or a coup or whatever else they did to get their country back. if there was anyone who has the most of his pieces it could have been wilbur, would have been wilbur.

it wasn’t wilbur.

tubbo. his best friend, who has followed him through everything. tubbo, who is the one who holds the most pieces of tommy, who keeps a tight hold on the disc, who knows that no matter what tommy says, he’s always been the most important. they fight and they scream at each other and at each other’s sides. they go through war together, they go through schlatt, and in the end there is only them.

them, they who have suffered so much, who have been failed by every adult they ever trusted. they are just kids, tired, scared, stupid kids, whose parts have been replaced until they are not sure they will ever be the same. there are two discs and two compasses and two boys, and in the end-

in the end, there is him, and tubbo, and they are standing on top of the world, and they are quiet. there is no disc playing in the background, not this time. they cannot see the sun rising; the air is full of smoke.

“hey, big man,” tommy says quietly to tubbo. they are standing on an obsidian grid and everything they knew is burning. “it’s been a while.”

he is looking at a grave. l’manberg is nothing more than a crater, a cemetery. tubbo smiles.

“it has,” he replies.

there is a boy standing on what was once a hill. the sun is rising and he cannot see it. the burnt leaves are rustling with a breeze that does not exist. he is surrounded by ghosts.

his name is tommy innit and he is staring at a grave. he is standing tall on the balls of his feet, ready to run. he’s sick of running. he thinks he’s like to rest now.

he is talking to a grave, not of his brother, but of his country. l’manberg is not dead, not while he and tubbo are still breathing. l’manberg is not dead, and neither is tommy’s hope.

he is not the same kid he used to be. all of his parts, all of his pieces, one by one, have been replaced. but he is not a ship- he is not boards and nails. he is blood and skin and bone and a brilliant, beating heart. there are pieces of him lying scattered throughout the world. everyone he knows has taken a part of him and replaced it.

there are no monsters, not now. there is nothing for him to fight. there is only him and tubbo standing on top of the world. he is all broken pieces held together by the glue of the people he loves and hates and fights with and laughs with.

he doesn’t know about the ship. but he’s changed. he’s changed, and he’s still the same. his name is tommy innit and he is the hero of this world and that hasn’t changed and will never change. he is irrefutably different and completely the same and in the end it doesn’t matter, does it? the ship’s still a ship. it’ll still sail.

tommy is still tommy. there is golden lacquer filling his porcelain cracks, there are wings at his back and a compass around his neck and he is ready to rest.

(he knows he won’t rest. not for a long time. but his hope is not dead; he will allow himself to hope. that’s the one thing that’s remained, after all, no matter what form it takes- he has and always will have hope.)

**Author's Note:**

> [ twitter ](https://www.twitter.com/andthentheybow)
> 
> [ tumblr ](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/andthentheybow)
> 
> comment for soft /p kissies


End file.
